


Just a Crush

by Cartadwarfwithaheartofgold (manka)



Series: Paragon of Their Kind 2020 Exchange [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Protective Varric Tethras, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manka/pseuds/Cartadwarfwithaheartofgold
Summary: Yasmena Adaar has a crush on Varric Tethras. It isn't helped by his constant flirting, but it's definitely going to pass....right?
Relationships: Female Adaar/Varric Tethras, Female Inquisitor/Varric Tethras
Series: Paragon of Their Kind 2020 Exchange [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036824
Comments: 11
Kudos: 37
Collections: A Paragon of Their Kind Dragon Age Dwarf Exchange





	Just a Crush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuffypelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuffypelly/gifts).



> Happy dwarves-giving tuffypelly! Enjoy this super rarepair, I hope I did them justice!

Yasmena Adaar knew Varric Tethras was trouble the first time she met him.

Shokrakar always said Yas had _horrible_ taste in men, but Shok would be _howling_ to see who Yas had fallen for this time. No strapping, but stupid lumberjack. Not a svelte elf with big blue eyes and a hundred schemes to make her fortune.

 _This time_ , Yasmena had a crush on a dwarven author who cared _far_ more than he should. If Shok found out, she would never hear the end of it.

But Yas tells herself it doesn’t matter. Varric is kind and friendly. Varric is the only one to ask how she is and he _wants_ to know the real answer, even when it’s less than pretty. Varric makes her laugh when it feels like the whole world is ending.

Varric makes the loss of so many of her company, her friends, ache a little less. Varric spins stories of his own friends, the merry band of Kirkwall degenerates, and tells them to her by campfire at every new location. Even better, Varric _listens_ to her when she begins to talk about her own.

Which is how she always ends up across the campfire, staring into his handsome face, spilling her guts.

“So then Hissra says ‘well, we could always just send Taarlok in.’ Of course, we think that’s a _terrible_ idea.”

Varric grins, watching her attentively. “Cause Taarlok is the guy who does your contracts, but once stabbed himself with an arrow?”

“Exactly!” Yas slaps her hand down on her thigh, the crack loud in the silence, echoing across the desert around them. “But we’ve tried everything else, right? The bandits are cozied up in this bleedin’ fortress like rats in a hole. What could it hurt?”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Varric agrees sincerely.

“That qalaba- sorry, idiot- he marches right up to the fortress, hands on his hips. And I swear on all your Makers and Andrastes-”

Varric’s lip twitches in fond amusement. “Only one of each of those, Blossom.”

She waves his interruption, his correction, _and_ his ridiculous nickname right out of the air. “ _Whatever_. So Taarlok knocks on the bleedin’ gate and yells up that he wants to see their rental agreement.”

Varric’s grin splits his face in half. It makes her heart flutter. “A man after my own heart.”

She _knew_ he’d love this story. She continues, secretly pleased. “Would you believe they opened the damn doors? I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Varric smirks and leans back, folding his arms over his broad chest in a way that shouldn’t be attractive, but is. He looks far too smug and it sends a spike of heat to her gut. “You’ve never seen _me_ work. Made a whole gang of thieves rush out of their warehouse by telling them there was a fire. You shoulda seen them run.”

“Bullshit,” she calls, but fondly.

Varric’s eyes sparkle and he shrugs. “Don’t doubt what a man with a clever tongue can accomplish.”

She knows what she _wants_ that clever tongue to accomplish. She can’t help the naughty thought and the flood of red to her cheeks. She can only pray that he doesn’t notice.

Of course he does. His eyes flick across her cheeks and his lips curl up in shocked triumph. That delightful mouth opens-

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra shouts from the opposite side of camp. “I need a-”

She doesn’t even wait for what Cass needs. Yas jumps up so quickly she almost dumps the bandages she was rolling, and forgot about, into the fire.

She giggles nervously. “Duty calls!”

Varric calls after her, always needing to get the last word. “That’s not even the _best_ thing my tongue’s done, Blossom!”

She doesn’t stop blushing under her pearl gray skin for _hours_.

* * *

It’s just a crush. She’s had them before. They always run their course.

Except this one particular crush seems to have rather unusual staying power. She finds herself watching Varric often, memorizing the way his lips move when he tells a long story, the way his hands deftly pick a lock or clean his crossbow. She knows it’s ridiculous, there’s clearly a _reason_ he’s single.

But for a man who claims to be just about married to his crossbow, he _loves_ to flaunt himself in ways certain to embarrass her. He loses to her in strip Wicked Grace, just to slowly shimmy out of that ridiculous silk tunic and throw it at her while she stutters and stammers.

He shoots her a wink whenever he fells a demon with one clean shot. She _thought_ Blossom was a bad enough nickname, but he quickly adds in a bevy of other ones. Beautiful, sweetheart, _horny_.

The day he called her Horny, with a _straight face_ , she almost lit herself on fire. She could still hear Cassandra’s disgusted exclamation and it made her _cringe_.

With any other man she’d whack him with her staff so hard he would think twice of _ever_ flirting with _any_ woman again. But Varric’s teasing is interspersed with so much genuine warmth and friendship she can’t help going back for more. Again. And again. And _again_.

Shok will murder her when she finds out.

* * *

Yas wakes up in pieces, not all at once. The first thing she hears is the rumble of a voice, familiar and soothing, that threatens to lull her back into sleep. The _second_ thing she notices is the soft mattress beneath her, which is _wrong_. They’d been in the Emerald Graves, but now she’s in her bed, and _that_ doesn’t make sense.

Neither does the uncomfortable pressure around her ribs. Her eyes flutter open, looking at the stone ceiling above her, listening to the sounds while she tries to keep absolutely still.

Crackling fire. Wind whipping outside her tower bedroom. And _Varric’s_ voice reading softly beside her bed.

She turns quietly to observe him. The stubble on his jaw is just a bit too long, the shadows under his eyes mark nights of little to no sleep. The Randy Dowager is open in his hands, and he’s reading from it, but there’s something almost mechanical about his voice.

Her voice cracks around his name. “Varric?”

He actually almost drops the book in his haste to whip around and face her. It’s disconcerting to see his steady hands, so used to handling delicate work in spite of their broad size, almost falter.

But his smile looks relieved. “There you are, Blossom. I appreciate the drama, truly, but I’m getting a bit old and you’re wrecking havoc on my ulcers.”

Her tongue feels like cotton in her mouth. She struggles to make it form the words she wants it to say. “What happened?”

Varric’s face darkens. “You don’t remember?”

Her stomach twists, guiltily. The apology comes before she can stop it. “I’m sorry.”

He smoothes away the pained look in a blink, so efficiently she almost doubts it was there at all. He sets the book aside and moves from his seat in the armchair to the side of her bed, settling beside her.

Varric is in her bed. _Varric Tethras is in her bed_. Yes, it’s innocent. And honestly, she feels so shitty she wouldn’t be able to sit up and rip his tunic off if it _wasn’t_ innocent. Still, her heart rate picks up in her chest.

He helps matters not at all when his amber eyes sweep over the shadow of her body beneath the sheet, her long legs, her endless torso, up to her face. Her breath catches to see the flash of heat there.

There’s no way. Absolutely no way.

“What’s the last thing you remember, Yas?” he whispers.

It’s an easy question. Or, at least, it should be. But Varric chooses that moment to reach up and tuck a lock of black hair away from her sharp cheekbones and back behind a pointed ear. She can hear her own soft gasp at the feel of his rough fingers treating her so gently.

Very few people have ever treated her gently. And that it’s _Varric_ …

She can feel the blood rushing to her face and swallows quickly, but she can’t rip her eyes from his. His smile quirks up on one side. “Yas. Focus.”

“Easier said than done,” she rasps, breathless. Varric chuckles.

“I need to know where to start the story.”

She closes her eyes to escape his warm scrutiny and tries to think. Tries to remember. Something vague and unsettling claws at the back of her mind. A dark hallway. Corpses. Torches that flickered on by themselves.

Varric’s muttered, sarcastic “ _Great_.”

“We got to the Chateau. There was something wrong.”

Varric huffs. “That’s putting it mildly. The ‘ _something’_ turned out to be a possessed mage kid turned into one hell of a demon.”

A kid. Her stomach twists again and her eyes fly open. “Did we save-”

He shakes his head before she can finish her question. “Wasn’t anything left to save, Blossom.”

The weight of that presses her into the mattress and Varric’s hand moves from her face to stroke her shoulder. A light, reassuring touch like trying to sooth a startled cat. She wants to curl into it, but Varric starts speaking again before she can do something foolish.

“It was an Arcane Horror. We had it almost down for the count, but you know how those things get when they’re in a corner. It lashed out, laid Tiny straight on the ground, and was heading for me.”

He shoots her a pointed, stern glare. “Until _you_ got in the way.”

Oh no. Of course she got embarrassingly injured _saving him_.

“But we won?” she asks.

“Of course we did.” He preens, just a little. “I put a bolt in its eye, dropped it like a sack of bricks, slung you over my shoulder, and carried you the whole way back to Skyhold.”

She scoffs. “If that was true, my toes would be bleeding from dragging on the ground.”

“There is a frankly ridiculous amount of leg attached to you, Blossom, but I managed. It was quite heroic, shame you slept through it.”

She rolls her eyes. “Sounds like I was the hero. Saving _your_ ass.”

“And let me assure you, no matter how fine the chest hair, it’s not worth losing you over.”

It sounds like a joke, but there’s an edge of sadness underneath it that squeezes her heart. She stares at him, mouth opening in shock. His fingertips trace a smooth pattern over her shoulder, thoughtful, while he studies her.

“I thought it was cute. The crush. Felt damn good for the ego too, not gonna lie.”

She groans and wishes suddenly they’d have just let the demon kill her. “Varric-”

“You’re, what, twenty-three?”

She bristles. “I’m twenty-five, serah.”

“I’m _forty_ ,” Varric insists. “I know I’ve aged like fine wine, but…”

She glares and straightens in her sick bed. “I am an _adult_. Member of the Valo-Kas. I was second-in-command of my company and I’m _the_ Inquisitor. I have fought and fought and _fought_ for every moment of my life and _you_ got to forty sitting on your ass in Kirkwall.”

He blinks. Then he laughs. “Well, when you put it like that…”

He leans in, those talented fingers moving to cup her jaw. Her heartbeat spikes without her permission. “Did I ever tell you why I call you Blossom?”

“I thought it was a joke,” she whispers. This close, she can spot the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, but it’s nothing compared to the power of his voice.

“You remind me of those big stalks of Embrium. With the bright flowers at the end and all the soft, silky petals. First time I saw you, all I could think about was seeing how soft you were under that armor.”

 _Fuck_ being injured. She tries to sit up, arms grasping for him, and it takes all his strength to hold her down. He huffs a soft laugh.

“Are you serious?” she demands, narrowing her eyes. “If this is you teasing me again, I swear I’ll throw you off the balcony.”

“I only take two things seriously, Inquisitor.” His smile is full of wicked delight as he leans over her. “Cards and deadly, beautiful women.”

He captures her shocked laughter with those sinful lips of his and every thought flies out of her head but one.

She knew he’d be trouble, but he was the _best_ kind.

**Author's Note:**

> From Pornzammar with Love, [@cartadwarfwithaheartofgold](https://cartadwarfwithaheartofgold.tumblr.com/)


End file.
